Number Sense Learning Trajectory

I spent the last two weeks of July in a math PD workshop.  I admit to not being thrilled to give up two full weeks of my summer break when I could be doing important stuff like sleeping in, going to the lake, staying up late at campfires, swimming, and just generally having some down time, but I am so glad I did agree to go, since I came away with a deeper understanding of teaching math. To begin with, take at look at these words and definitions.  Our first task was to match the word to the definition (that was the easy part), Early Number Sense Learning Trajectory  then order them in the sequence that a child goes through these mathematical milestones.   That proved much more difficult for many of us.  Take a few minutes to see if you can match words and definitions and put them in the correct order.

And here are the stages in the correct order.  You can see by the time they come to first grade, many of these milestones have been attained.  But if you have a child who is struggling, you can try to pinpoint where he/she is on this list, and that can drive your remediation for the child. Graham Fletchy has some great progression videos.  In this first video, he talks about the early progression of math development. It's seven minutes long, but well worth your time. Early Number and Counting One way to build that early number sense fluency is to incorporate Quick Images into your daily math routine, spending about 5 to 15 minutes on the activity.  Using cards with dots on them that are arranged in various groups, you flash the cards quickly for about 3 to 5 seconds to visualize the amount.  Then you ask the students what they saw using questions like -How many did you see?       -How did you know it so quickly? -Did you need to count? -What did you see? -How could you tell the number so quickly?  While discussing these quick images, allow children to freely share their ideas.  It is important that they be able to verbalize their math thinking without being worried about being "right". You can learn more about quick images by clicking the button below.  Also included are dot pattern cards for you to get started with your quick image routine.

More information about Number Talks and Quick Images Download Quick Images Dot Cards

I hope  you find this information useful for your math instruction.  Be sure to check out my next newsletter, where I will be sharing some great websites and apps you will be able to use during your math block to help build number sense!

Mega Gift Card Giveaway!

click the picture to visit the #schoolsavings sale.

*** BACK TO SCHOOL MEGA GIFT CARD GIVEAWAY ***

Fancy winning some extra spending money to help you purchase everything you need for your 2017-18 classroom? Myself and a team of amazing teachers have grouped together to gift THREE awesome teachers TPT gift cards. 

PRIZES INCLUDE 1 x $200 TPT Giftcard. 1 x $200 Amazon Giftcard, 1 x $25 Starbucks Giftcard, and 1 x $15 Starbucks Giftcard!

#1 TAG your teacher friends by adding their names in the comment section
#2 SHARE THIS POST
#3 ENTER HERE: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b4951b8521/?

REMEMBER: each entry counts as ONE entry, the more links you complete, the higher your chances of winning!!

Raffle CLOSES: Saturday 21st July 2017 12am

Also, SECRET SECRET HASHTAG SALE for two days only! Search #schoolsavings in the Teachers Pay Teachers search bar to find products 1/2 OFF! (14th-16th)

GOOD LUCK!!!

I've got two great bundles in the hashtag sale at 50% off!  If you use the Journeys series, you're going to want to check out my supplemental workbooks that provide extra skills practice.  Here's a video over of the whole series.

You can find the resources by clicking on the cover below.

The second bundle I'm offering at 50% off is my reading level and placement resource. Check it out by clicking on the cover below.

Good luck and happy shopping!!

Happy 4th of July!!

Have you seen this gorgeous picture floating around social media?  I saw it on Facebook this morning, and it immediately made me hum "America the Beautiful." I hope you have a wonderful Fourth of July, filled with family and fun!  We're planning a picnic with friends and family, a day of swimming, and fireworks tonight. I hope you have a wonderful Fourth of July, filled with family and fun!  We're planning a picnic with friends and family, a day of swimming, and fireworks tonight. I've got a fun freebie to share with you today!  Do you struggle to keep your desktop organized?  I always did, with icons scattered all over my desktop, until I created this series of desktop calendar pngs to use as backgrounds.  Now, everything I need is organized and I know where to find what I'm working on at a glance.  This is what my desktop looks like right now.  Each month, I change out the background, and I've got a calendar at-a-glance, as well as all my work organized. It's really easy to use.  Once you download the PNG, just right-click set as desktop background.  Then you can move your files around to put them in the categories that work best for you.  I've included the finished PNG and the PPT file, in case my categories don't work for you and you need to create new ones.  You can download by clicking the button below. Download your calendar desktop background here

If you're in the mood to shop, there are quite a few sales going on on TpT.  Be sure to check out the #freedomdeals and #4onthe4th sales.  If you click on the picture below, you can see what I've got on sale.  If you type the search terms into TpT, you can see all the great deals. Or you can just click the buttons I've added here.

That's it for now! Enjoy the day and TTYL!! #freedomedeals #4onthe4th

Struggling to get it all in?

If you are like me, you struggle to get everything in that you need to teach in a day. There's always something that seems to get pushed to the aside to do "later." For me, it usually has to do with math -- not my favorite subject to teach, and we are only scheduled for math for 40 minutes a day, although I do have some flexibility within my schedule, sometime stretching it to 50 minutes or an hour if necessary.

With the focus on math strategies in our math book, it feels like automaticity of the basic facts gets left behind.  This really bothers me because I know how important it is for children to know their basic facts at a glance.

I've tried various ways to incorporate mastery, but they have fallen short, until this year, when I created this nifty little addition game, available in PPT or Google™ Slides.

As you can see, this is a great tool to use during transition times or down times in the classroom, as we come back from using the restroom in dribs and drabs or coming back from lunch.  You can also use it as math game for the whole group or in a center.  But best of all, once I started using this in my classroom daily, I saw less and less finger counting and number line counting and more and more automaticity of the basic facts in my classroom.

Once the children had started memorizing these addition facts, it was easier for them to understand the relationship between addition and subtraction facts and recognize how fact families worked. I'm really excited to use it earlier in the year this upcoming school year!

If you signed up for my newsletter, you could get the PowerPoint version of this game absolutely free!  If not, you can find the Google™ Slides version bundled with PPT version in my TpT store.  You can sign up for my newsletter by visiting my Facebook page and hitting the sign up button. Just click on my logo below to take you there!

Science Freebie Bald Eagle Mini-Research Project

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Click here to download this freebie

Hi friends!  I wanted to share with you a fun and easy research project you can do with  your class. It just a quick little research booklet that asks specific questions, and then the children can type those questions into Google to find the answers.

 I've actually done the research part of this in first grade by grouping up my students so the more able readers can help the less able readers.  They were so into researching and finding answers that they were reading far more than they realized! n After they write the answer to the question in a sentence, they can illustrate the answer in the blank space at the top of the page.

With all the eagle cams set up around the country, I find the children are fascinated by observing and keeping an eagle log.  At some point during the day, I will pull up the eagle cam, and we observe the eagles for five minutes or so, then record information into our log. I try to visit at least 3 times a week until at least the first egg hatches.

You can get this free resource in my store by clicking the cover above, or you can visit Teacher's Toolkit store for a round up of free resources for Teacher Treat Tuesday by clicking the picture below.

http://www.teacherstoolkitblog.com/2017/02/teacher-treat-tuesday_21.html

Click here to visit Teacher's Toolkit and score some great teacher treats!

Have a great week, everyone!